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Rename taxis and ambulances

  (+7)
(+7)
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When you're driving and there's a taxi or ambulance behind you, the lettering 'TAXI' or 'AMBULANCE' of course shows up as flipped horizontally in your rear-view mirror*. This is OK, and perfectly readable, but aesthetically displeasing. Of the two, the word 'TAXI' is better of course because each of the letters is the same when flipped horizontally, but it then reads 'IXAT'. It would be far better to rename taxis and ambulances to not only use letters which are the same when flipped horizontally (A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X, Y) but also be palindromic words.

[* we will ignore for now the reasons why mirrors only flip things horizontally and not vertically...]
hippo, Sep 28 2021

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambigram [pocmloc, Sep 28 2021]

ambulance written both ways https://en.wikipedi...wiki/Mirror_writing
[xandram, Sep 29 2021]

Lingojam https://lingojam.com/MirrorYourText
Mirror your text generator [reensure, Oct 04 2021]

[link]






       If you lie on your side, then the mirror flips things vertically.   

       You could use vertical-symmetric letters if you run the lettering sideways up and down the edges of the vehicle.
pocmloc, Sep 28 2021
  

       There's also the possibility of creative typography. For example, B can flip to E, C to D, G to Q, J to L, P to Q, S to Z, b to d, e to g, and of course lower-case l is symmetrical. Beyond that, typographic artwork can be astonishing, I have seen Chinese and Arabic calligraphy that also reads in English, as well as bilingual logos or signs in Latin letters which can be read in either language.
pocmloc, Sep 28 2021
  

       [a1] Indeed! That's the kind of thing I meant
hippo, Sep 28 2021
  

       WOAOW would read mirrored and palindromically and - and! - be a reasonable phonetic approximation of an ambulance siren. Or WAOAW, I suppose, though that would perhaps put more pressure on the already chronically underfunded Department of Kerning.
calum, Sep 28 2021
  

       AmbuludmA
tAxAj
pocmloc, Sep 28 2021
  

       [calum] Yes, and there's a chronic shortage of skilled kerners at the moment - probably because of Brexit
[pocmloc] Nice use of lower case, but I regard the (t=j) doctrine as heresy
hippo, Sep 28 2021
  

       As usual, hippo, you have the germ of a good idea but your inherent Britishness does not allow you to go nearly far enough with it & push things to their logical conclusion.

The underlying reasoning, that something should be changed for purely aesthetic purposes is entirely sound. However, you have settled on a very minor change instead of the radical overhaul that needs to be enacted. Which is, of course, that we need to eliminate all the characters from the alphabet that are not palindromic & replace them with new letters that are.

That way people will not have to struggle with getting used to new names for things, they will just have to spell them differently.
B+ for effort!
DrBob, Sep 28 2021
  

       A simple 999 would do the job. When behind you and laterally inverted in the mirror, it reads as 666, the deadly mark of beast so it's best to get out of its way.
xenzag, Sep 28 2021
  

       [xenzag] I like your thinking, but wouldn't a reversed 999 read more like PPP which as far as I know doesn't have any as-yet well defined biblical ownership connotations. I'm sure we could make something up though.
zen_tom, Sep 28 2021
  

       These are Australian mirrors
xenzag, Sep 28 2021
  

       So, ddd
pocmloc, Sep 28 2021
  

       Around here AMBULANCE is usually written already flipped on the front of the vehicle so it can be read properly from the rear view mirror.
xandram, Sep 28 2021
  

       Around here, the fire trucks have "FIRE" in both regular AND mirror image on the front. Never seen the same on an ambulance; probably because the word is so long.
neutrinos_shadow, Sep 29 2021
  

       [a1] Ambulance is written both ways so you can see it anyway you look at it. See link
xandram, Sep 29 2021
  

       ^ well I live in the usa and I have seen them here.
xandram, Sep 29 2021
  

       [bob] so B+ goes then?
po, Sep 30 2021
  

       I tried to use a nice, symmetrical Greek character. But the 'bakery comment box just replaced it with the ASCII code. Which also wasn't symmetrical. :(
DrBob, Sep 30 2021
  

       HAWAAHAAWAH?   

       TAXAT?
Frankx, Oct 02 2021
  

       I wonder if "boss level" texts with only the first and last letters in their correct order in words have a corresponding level of difficulty when read in a mirror. 911 doesn't covert well in HB text boxes.
reensure, Oct 04 2021
  

       Or just have 90 deg. mirror angles on the sides of cards.
Mindey, Nov 13 2021
  

       I like this, just do palindromes with the letters: AHIMOTUVWXY. Clever.   

       itAXAti sort of implies "taxi".
doctorremulac3, Nov 13 2021
  

       It somehow looks as if it meant something rude in Basque.
pertinax, Nov 13 2021
  

       Like you'd hold up some bizarre configuration of fingers while you yell it.
doctorremulac3, Nov 15 2021
  

       A slightly niche application of this idea is to use the letters "IOHSXZMW" which have rotational symmetry but not necessarily mirror symmetry. Thus if a vehicle is involved in a catastrophic accident and ends up a crumpled wreck upside down in the middle of the road, then the lettering on the front of the vehicle displaying a word such as "WHIXXIHM" will still be readable.
hippo, Nov 16 2021
  

       And you criticised me for t and j...
pocmloc, Nov 16 2021
  

       There's no justice, is there? :-)
hippo, Nov 16 2021
  
      
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